By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Linda Gyuran knows that honesty is the best policy.
The Mahomet resident remembers her job interview – which took place in 1983 – for a position in the Mahomet-Seymour school district.
At the time, she was a single mom with sons entering first and fifth grades.
“I was living with mom and dad,” Gyuran recalled. “I had to find something that would work around my kids’ schedule.”
She met with Lee Jessup, then the director of transportation for the M-S district.
He was talking with people who were interested in earning $4.25 an hour to be school bus drivers.
“He asked me, ‘Are you here because you love kids or for the money,’” Gyuran said.
She had to tell the truth.
“I told him, ‘I do love kids, but I kind of need the money, too,’” Gyuran said.
It was 36 years ago that Gyuran was hired to drive a yellow bus full of Mahomet-Seymour children to school in the morning and then home again in the afternoon.
“This was my first job,” she said.
Her tenure as a regular driver will end on Friday, at the conclusion of the first semester. Gyuran decided it was time to retire.
“I will go out still having love and patience to give,” she said.
Among current active drivers in the district, she is third on the seniority list behind Carolyn Stover and Rita Norris.
After her high school graduation, Gyuran started into cosmetology school, but encountered a problem.
“I was allergic (to the chemicals),” she said.
She stayed at home and raised her children. Until she needed to work.
Maneuvering a bus was not an area where Gyuran had expertise.
“At first,” she said, “it was a little intimidating.
“I only had four hours of training and then an eight-hour course to prepare to take the driver’s test.”
Experience was her best teacher.
“You learn as you go in any job,” Gyuran said.
It wasn’t long before she was confident.
“Now I can drive a bus better than a car,” Gyuran said. “I drive it more than I drive my own car.”
A typical school day starts for Gyuran at 6:15 a.m. when she clocks in and checks out her bus. She is on the road by 6:45 and picking up her first students in Pine Tree by 7 a.m.
She goes from Pine Tree to Hunter’s Ridge, making stops at several rural locations along the way. It’s a route she has traveled for about 15 years, though the configuration has changed. At one time, she was also responsible for Spring Lake pickups.
If she’s on schedule, she drops off high school students at 7:50. Most days, as she makes the rounds, Gyuran is transporting in excess of 70 students.
She makes an additional run, dropping off the children of teachers, whom she picks up at the parent’s school, and delivers them to the building where they attend.
Gyuran is back in her bus by 9:10 a.m. for some middle runs, where she delivers special needs students to the job sites for their work programs.
She’s finished by 11 and takes a lunch break. By 12:30 she’s back in gear and travels back to the various work locations to pick up the students that need to be returned to their respective buildings.
Her afternoon route routine starts at 2:15. On good days, she is finished and parking her bus by 4:30.
“You’re pretty much gone the whole day,” she said.
Many evenings there is the option to deliver students to extra-curricular events.
As she looks back on her decades behind the wheel, Gyuran has one regret.
“I wish I would have kept a journal,” she said.
Her memories are many and started at the very beginning of her tenure.
“The first day I went on my route, an older kid got on carrying a milk jug and a slice of pie with a fork in it,” Gyuran remembered. “I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘That’s my breakfast.’”
There was a time Gyuran thought she would do something different. She returned to school and earned a degree in human services.
When it was time to start a job search, however, Gyuran realized she didn’t need to look far.
“Once I completed the degree, I didn’t want to leave (driving a bus),” she said. “It was like a whole big station wagon of my own kids.
“I treated them like you’d want your own kids or grands to be treated.”
While she enjoyed the driving, Gyuran also believed she should do something with her degree. She subsequently spent seven years in a dual-job situation, spending her Saturdays and Sundays at the Cunningham Children’s Home, in Urbana.
“I’d work 15-hour days on the weekends,” she said. “Sometimes I’d work until 11 at night.
“Looking back, I think, ‘How did I do that?’”
She worked primarily with ages 16 to 21 at Cunningham.
“I’ve never had a job where I didn’t work with kids,” Gyuran said. “Every day was a new day.”
The demands of working two jobs were too great and seven years ago, Gyuran left Cunningham.
The bus-driving rewards are more than financial.
“Parents trusting me with their kids is big,” she said. “It’s hard to let your kid get on with someone you don’t know.
“And the kids trusting me and loving me as a person. I see their smiles when they see that I’m there every day.”
Gyuran has been a part of several traditions, including an annual field trip in May which results in a stop at the Dairy Queen.
Even though she has no monitor, she has had no issues.
“It’s just me watching them, but they are so well-behaved,” Gyuran said. “They are never disrespectful or out of line.”
As the school year ends, there’s also a stop at 13 Acres Park for a water-gun fight, an event which was established between several drivers more than two decades ago.
“I’ve had to get permission slips,” Gyuran said. “Some of the parents would stop by and watch.
“I still participated this year.”
Gyuran has helped more than one generation of students make memories beyond simply getting to school and then home safely each day.
She knows where she stands with some of her former riders as well, including some of whom are now driving to school.
“They’ll jump on the bus and give me a hug,” Gyuran said. “A lot of them I have on Facebook. It’s fun to follow along.”
She remains in contact with some former passengers years after they’ve graduated.
“Seeing kids that struggled, and then where they’re at today and what they’ve accomplished, makes me so happy,” Gyuran said.
For Gyuran, there’s not a question about what’s next.
“I have three grandsons I want to spend more time with,” she said.
The hardest part, Gyuran expects, will be changing her routine.
“To get used to not getting up and going on my route will be hard,” she said.
As the countdown to Friday, Dec. 20 continues, Gyuran doesn’t think it will get any easier.
“I’ve been pretty emotional since before Thanksgiving,” she said. “Everyone has brought me something, and the cards have brought tears to my eyes.
“I tell them I know I’ll get to see them somewhere. I know they will adjust (to a new driver).”
And those future meetings might even be sooner than later. Gyuran hopes to spend some time later this month and through mid-January learning the approximately 20 daily routes that the school district runs.
In another month, she will make herself available to fill in.
“I’m going to relax, spend time with family, sub a little bit and see what happens,” she said.
It won’t be hard for her to return to a yellow bus.
“I’d rather be around a child than an adult,” Gyuran said. “Kids keep you young.”
